Stereotypes

01/08/2010 11:56 by Amsterdamize

We Amsterdammers, and Dutch, for that matter, don't live in windmills, we don't go dancing in wooden shoes, we're not high on welfare & drugs, aside from a very speculative bubble in the past, we don't go nuts on tulips and not everything Verboten is legal in NL.
On the cycling front, there's generally still a quite distorted perception regarding Dutch bikes: they all look the same (black), they have just one gear, most of them are beaters, they are way too heavy (and the Dutch are exceptional for being able to ride them) and they are a far cry from resembling a 'bicycle culture'...as in, they're not 'personalized'.
Stereotypes, gotta love 'm. But I'm skipping over all of that, because the most important part of cycling in the Netherlands is not lost on the 'untrained' eye: it's not as much about the bikes themselves what makes people's visit an extraordinary one, it's what these Dutchies DO with their bikes and how they don't have to change a damn thing about who they are. The rest would just be a distraction from their purpose; getting from A to B, conveniently.